Fic: Someone Like You
Title: Someone Like You
Author: wandaplenn
Pairing: Ben Whishaw/Joseph Gordon-Levitt, JGL/OMC
Rating: PG
Word Count: 3,020
Author’s Note: I wrote this as a gift for a friend, who requested a JGL/Ben Whishaw fic based on the Adele song "Someone Like You." My first song!fic! Love Adele, love the boys, how could I resist? Now I just might have to start a JGL/BW community, though a cursory LJ-search leads me to believe this may be the only fic of its kind on the internet ... (Don't miss cameo appearances by Tom Hardy, Ellen Page, and Facebook! My friend is the OMC, but his name has been changed to protect the not-so-innocent.)
Heard That You're Settled Down
London is still so cold in March, even in Ben’s tiny flat over the bookshop with the red door. He’s in bed under his big white duvet, twisted into a variation on a yoga pose he once learned--ankles under knees. It’s supposed to increase circulation, though he’s sure it’s not meant to be done on a mattress with one’s computer open, finger sticking out from under the covers to scroll through one’s electronic life.
It’s a necessary evil, his Facebook page, not for any personal use (Ben shudders to think of filling out an online profile for anything, really), but for his latest boutique business operation: reselling vintage vinyl and rehabbed turntables. He does the mechanic work in a corner of his kitchen; old 45 players and gramophones and victrolas stacked in heaps next to the litter box, waiting for various parts. The hipsters in Brooklyn who buy from him are none the wiser.
So it’s not his fault, really, that he’s forced to have this monstrous achievement of human exhibitionism open on his computer all day, but it might be his fault if he takes a few moments to check up on people--people he works with, people he used to know, customers--clicking through their pages, getting a taste of the bits of their life that don’t require his “friendship.”
There’s only one person he really wants to check on, but he knows the simple click to get there would be the end of some purity he feels within himself, some freedom from the shackles of social media, and it makes him queasy to consider.
He has typed in the name, up in the little search bar, to see what came up, and of course there’s only one Joe Gordon-Levitt. There are tons of Joe Gordons and a couple Joe Levitts and there are no Joseph Gordon-Levitts, which in a funny way means to Ben that his Joseph isn’t on this blasted thing, but he knows that only he called him Joseph and this Joe Gordon-Levitt is assuredly his Joseph, if not in name, then in reality, because he’s in Philadelphia and he’s in a thumbnail picture, staring right back into Ben’s eyes.
It’s just a little picture--a close-cropped haircut, a smirk, the promise of over 1,000 friends behind that one blue link--but Ben hasn’t clicked. He’s resisted that click for so long.
It might be the shiver that won’t leave Ben’s spindly body or the fact that it’s been grey outside for over 10 days here in London that makes him feel there’s nothing left to lose, nothing pure in this flat anymore. Something makes him choose this day to click.
Ben isn’t surprised to discover that Joseph’s page is totally open--all of his likes and his photos and his updates--it seems just like Joseph to be so intrinsically comfortable online, as in life, so sure of himself and unworried about other people’s perceptions of him. (As for himself, Ben wonders for the first time if it might be that he’s too scared of social networking to sign up, not only superior to it--though that is most certainly true, as well.)
There’s Joseph, Ben’s Joseph, and there are all of his updates about gigs he’s got, about where he’ll be playing his guitar and singing his poetry, and there are all the videos of him--grainy little things--shot in basements of Philly bars. And there’s his Basic Info, there’s the About Me which just says: “artist/performer/songwriter/lover,” and there are the words “In a relationship with Scotty Ruiz.”
There are the photos: Joseph in his kitchen chopping onions looking playfully at the camera, cleaning a dish, looking longingly at the camera, sitting at the dinner table, looking happy, eyes closed, someone with a dark head of hair kissing his face. The two of them facing the camera, smiling, joyful. “Scotty and Joe host the best dinner parties,” reads the caption.
Ben clicks his computer closed, softly; he moves it to the corner of his bed and digs down under the duvet, pretends to drown in the whiteness of it, deeper and deeper, and tries to pretend he hasn’t seen what he’s always dreaded.
Born and Raised in a Summer Haze
3 years earlier:
Ben hates Philadelphia. It's grimy and hot and no one there has any class. He can't say exactly why he's even here, except that it's cheaper than New York and a little bit off-kilter, and he thinks he might have a good chance of finding some vinyl he might not find elsewhere. But to be sure, he won't be here for long.
He pops into a coffee shop in between an estate sale in the morning and visiting a record store he's heard good things about. He must look quite ragged; the heat doesn't suit him, and he feels more than a bit wan. Caffeine should be just the thing.
He doesn’t know--how could he?--that this decision to go into this particular coffee shop on this particular day will be one of those occurrences that shifts the course of his life, that takes the little ball of putty in his chest and forms it into a heart, if only for a short while. No, he doesn’t know that. All he knows is that he needs tea, lots of it.
There’s a man behind the counter--cute and twitchy and all smiles--and he seems bemused by Ben and his baggage and his bedraggledness, and he also seems like someone who’s pretty good at making tea.
“What kind of tea do you have?” Ben asks, hoping for lapsang souchong, because it reminds him of his grandmother. As a child he thought it smelled of stable sweepings, but as an adult, he appreciates its robustness. “Lapsang?” He adds, dreamily.
The guy smiles. “Lapsang. Oh, we have that. My favorite. Coming right up.” And he winks and Ben thinks, maybe, just maybe, that was a bit of flirting. It piques his interest, anyway.
When the guy comes back with the tea, and the smell of lapsang floats languidly through the humid Philadelphia air, unlike any air Ben’s ever had the misfortune to encounter (even Vietnam doesn’t compare), Ben takes the cup and bats his eyes and says, in his thickest, poshest accent, “You have marvelous taste, darling.” He pauses to inhale the steam from the cup, so hot in his face--he almost feels like he’s at a bikram class--and he closes his eyes and allows himself a moment of floating, away from this shop, away from Philadelphia. When he opens them, the guy is still there. He’s a bit amused, perhaps, but he also seems calm, and Ben reaches his hand out, backside up as if expecting a kiss and says, “Ben.”
Well, this guy, he takes Ben’s hand and he gives it a squeeze and says, “Joe” and then he’s leaning down, and he grazes his lips over the back of Ben’s hand, and before Ben can even register it, the moment has passed. Too perfect, with the tea still between them; quite suddenly the heat and humidity feels all too appropriate and Ben is grateful for how it allows for his flushed face.
“A gentleman, in this city. I am enchanted,” and Ben can’t help but laugh and keep it all going. “Joseph, I think. It is much more poetic.”
Joe, Joseph now, he laughs and nods his head, accepting. So open. Ben thinks Philadelphia might not be so bad, after all.
*
“Why, do you think?” Joseph asks, from his spot just beside Ben in bed. There’s a sheet over the two of them, tangled between legs, the only thing between them and the thick, stifling air. A rusty fan whimpers in the corner, clicking softly against whatever spring once oscillated, coughing up just enough wind to allow life to continue, Ben thinks as he sweeps Joseph’s hair off his forehead and leans down to kiss his brow.
“Why what?” he whispers onto Joseph’s skin.
“Why do you think you found me?” Joseph sits up at that, brings his knees up under his chin, yanks away most of the sheet. He smiles and looks down and Ben feels it in his gut: deep affection, from this perfect boy, in this horrid room, and he doesn’t have the answer.
“God has always wanted me to be happy,” Ben says and tickles his fingers at Joseph’s knee and remembers last night, sitting in the back of the coffee shop at a tiny table, listening to Joseph strum his guitar and sing songs, so earnestly. “You don’t have to say you love me,” Ben begins to sing and Joseph looks bashful, looks away.
“Stop.” Joseph sighs. “I never know if you’re making fun of me.”
Ben squeezes his ankle at that, mock horror. “No, Joseph, darling, look at me.” Joseph looks down, shakes his head. “For you to sing my favorite song, for a boy to sing Dusty Springfield to me, in a dark shop, on a Tuesday night, this …. this is my dream. You are my dream.”
Joseph swings his leg around Ben, lies fully on top of him, slots his head against Ben’s neck. He mumbles into Ben’s ear, “You are my hallucination, I think.” He chuckles and squeezes and bites playfully at Ben’s ear and then he gets up.
Joseph stands at the foot of the bed and looks down at Ben. “And you’re so skinny. You might disappear.”
*
“I have been a hunter all day, stalking prey, and bringing home a feast for survival!” Ben yells and beats his chest as he enters Joseph’s apartment and drops his bags. He roars. “Me. Want. Steak.”
Joseph looks up from his book, unimpressed, vaguely bemused. “Yes, dear? What did you bring me?”
Ben deflates back down to normal size, pats his hair down and preens. “Well, not steak exactly. Records.”
“Qu’elle surprise, mon ami,” Joseph lets out in terrible French, though Ben would never really complain. French at all is better than nothing, oui?
“But a special one, for you, sweet Joseph,” and Ben scampers across the room and throws himself into Joseph’s lap, cradles himself right in his arms, and it might be perfect. He has to stop for a moment and appreciate Joseph’s glasses, ‘50s fades with a wire nose piece that make him look like a detective. It drives Ben wild.
Joseph laughs. He seems happy. Ben thinks that is probably a good thing. He’s not sure. He kisses the bridge of Joseph’s nose, right above the glasses and says, “Come see.”
The apartment is bright and airy. It’s been four weeks since Ben took up residence in Joseph’s tiny space; one night at a time, because he was to stay at a hostile that first day and Joseph wouldn’t allow it. And then because Joseph had just acquired every Nick and Nora film and wouldn’t Ben like to watch? And then they were necking like teenagers and it had been three days, and that was pretty much it. Four weeks feels like nothing; feels like forever. Feels like there was no before-Joseph, before-bliss.
Ben pulls out the vinyl, Edith Piaf, her eyes closed, her mouth open, her pained expression. “Pour toi, mon amour.”
Joseph takes it, giddily, and clutches it to his chest and hugs it and says, “Thank you. Thank you. Better than steak. I cherish it.”
It is a moment among all the moments--the lapsang, the kiss, the Dusty Springfield cover--a moment of pure Joseph, one that Ben can cling to. Some things are his.
*
The problem is not so much Philadelphia, but what it represents. Or, rather, its stench--bums and a distinct lack of class, putrid chopped steak and canned cheese, pigeons, sweaty Italian boxers. It’s not a place Ben could live; it’s not a place he ever imagined he’d end up. Joseph is not the way he had expected things to go.
Ben is European; Ben needs Europe; Ben needs Louise Bourgeois exhibits and high-speed rail and colorful paper money.
“There are Louise Bourgeois exhibits on the East Coast, Benjamin.” Joseph only calls him Benjamin when he’s upset. “The Philadelphia Art Museum is one of the best. The fucking Barnes, Ben! The. Barnes.”
“It is an exception, not a rule, darling. The Barnes belongs in Europe! You do, too!” Ben might be whining now, he can’t tell for sure. He must admit he is a bit flabbergasted at Joseph’s resistance to this plan, his unwillingness to get the hell out of godforsaken Philadelphia, to travel with Ben for a long, long time. To settle in the Austrian foothills with small black children they picked up in Malawi. “I suppose they needn’t be black, then? Korean?” Ben had asked, weakly, before Joseph threw a pillow at him.
“What is wrong with what we have now?” Joseph asks from his perch on the window ledge, looking out onto the street. “What is wrong with this?” He gestures all around him.
“Nothing is wrong right now. What’s wrong is tomorrow, and how much there is everywhere else.”
“I don’t agree. I will travel; you know I will love to travel with you. But I’ve gotta have home, you know? What about Tom and Ellen at the shop? My mom? This is me. My career’s finally going somewhere. I mean, that’s all I have.” Joseph says it all very stoically.
Ben nods. The thing is, he understands. The thing is, it’s quite a tragedy.
Nothing But the Best
5 years later:
Joseph had hugged him on the curb as they waited for his cab five years ago. He had said, “This hurts, and I think that means I really love you.” Ben had kissed him. He hadn’t, perhaps, understood the weight of that at the time.
He thinks he knows now; he understands now, as he sits in the back of that shop, at the same rickety table, back in Philadelphia, so many years later. It’s a Tuesday night, and of course Joseph is playing, because that was part of it, wasn’t it? Consistency, stasis, routine. The same.
But he knows about this pain in a new way now, as Joseph sits on a stool and tunes his guitar, because there is a slide show set up and it’s flickering slowly, in and out, on the wall behind him. He clears his throat and addresses the crowd.
“Thanks guys. Thank you. Thank you. So, a lot of you probably know that it’s Dustin’s first birthday this week, and Scotty and I are just so thrilled to share these pictures with you, and the joy of this first year, and so this set’s for my son.” Joseph looks out and Ben doesn’t think Joseph sees him; he just starts playing.
But Ben caught a glimmer in his eye. A peace, a contentment. And it hurts so much because, Ben thinks, he really loved Joseph. And it didn’t last.
The pictures come into focus for him; a small, black child, so joyful. Joseph holding the little bundle in his arms, handing him to Scotty. Scotty pushing a stroller, one of Dustin’s feet kicking out. The three of them on the floor, playing with trains, the caboose in Dustin’s mouth as Scotty fetches it out and Joseph laughs. Ben is glad to see it.
*
“Last call, sir.” It’s Ellen, Joseph’s old mate from the shop; she’s still here, too. She looks more closely at Ben as the lights come up and gasps. “Ben.” And then she smiles.
“Ellen. I’m fine.” Ben wipes his eyes, thinks it could be allergies, and smiles up at her and she leans down to squeeze him and whispers in his ear.
“It is good to see you, man.” She leans back. “But don’t get any ideas.”
“I have none but closure. I promise, dear.”
She nods, satisfied. “Then he’ll want to see you.”
Ben scratches his chair back and heads over to Joseph, wrapping up his guitar. Scotty is there; he knows it must be him, from all the pictures. He’s sitting down with Tom, drinking a glass of fizzy wine with Dustin on his knee, who’s playing idly with some coasters and bouncing satisfyingly. Ben clears his throat and they all look up at him, even Dustin, though it’s Joseph that Ben cares about.
“Ben,” he squeaks and Ben smiles; clasps his hands.
“Joseph.”
“Yes.”
Tom coughs and it’s as if that really signals the end. Ben and Joseph turn away and the rest of what is to come is about Joe, not Joseph. Joe is here, with Scotty, and his son, and his friend Tom--his old friend whom he’s worked in a shop with forever, and they will all grow old together whilst Joseph lives on only with Ben. In Ben’s heart, in his mind, but not aging here, not starting this family in bloody Philadelphia. That moment is gone.
Joe reaches down and picks up Dustin, perches him on his hip. “This is Dustin,” he coos, and leans in to give his son a butterfly kiss. “And this is Scotty,” he says as he reaches out, so much fondness in his eyes.
Scotty turns and stands, smiles politely. “Ben,” he says, and reaches out a hand. They shake. It’s all perfectly normal.
“I am just passing through. I had to see if the old Tuesday night gig lived on.” Ben says.
“Do you need a place to crash, or?” Joe asks and looks at Scotty who shrugs just as Ben cuts in.
“No, no. This is it. I do have to be off. I just,” and Ben looks down at his hands, unclasps them. “I am very happy to see you. You look well.”
Joe smiles brightly. “You look too skinny. As ever, Ben.”
Ben laughs and leans in to squeeze Joe’s shoulder, to wave at Tom, to smile at Scotty. He pats Dustin’s head and says, “I am your Uncle Ben, and you must visit me in Europe when this city gets too stifling. Yes?” Dustin gurgles, and Ben knows, at least, he will be remembered.